Significant hike in expenditure budget for FY23 unlikely

• Follow

The expenditure budget is unlikely to see any significant hike in the upcoming Budget, the Business Standard has reported, quoting unnamed officials.

The report further noted that along with the Centre, states too have been lax on capital expenditure so far which could mean that the FY23 target for capex could be set on a lower base.

Health an exception

The finance ministry is likely to bring some of the over Rs 3-trillion debt of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI into reckoning so that it shows up as explicit government liabilities as has been done for Food Corporation of India, the report said.

According to the Business Standard, the consensus in the finance ministry, which is busy firming up the budget spending estimates, is to push extra expenditure in a very few sectors, such as health. As a result, the fiscal deficit for FY23 could be around 6.8%, which was the same as for FY22.

FY22 target

Just before the Budget for next year is presented in Parliament, the finance ministry holds meetings with every department in the central government. This is to gauge how much of the allotted money for the current fiscal year would be used up.

The expenditure meetings the finance ministry held with various line ministries for FY22 indicate that many will not be spending the money allotted to them in FY22.

According to data available with the controller general of accounts for the first half of the year, the total expenditure for all ministries stood at 46.7% of budget estimates, the report said. Covid-19 is one of the several reasons for the muted spending.

A record Rs 5.54 trillion was earmarked capital expenditure for FY22.While the Centre slack in using up the amount, states have not made up for this slip, the report said.

According to the report, the final spending numbers for FY22 are unlikely to change from the estimated Rs 34.8 trillion. The estimates for overall government spend are a follow through of the discussion between the finance ministry and the other ministries for their revised budgets for FY22.